


Your Opus, Your Valuable

by LydiaArgent



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen, canon typical language, spoilers through ep 32: Controlled Demolition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 17:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6668407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydiaArgent/pseuds/LydiaArgent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things, Hera likes to keep to herself.</p><p>(Spoilers through Episode 32: Controlled Demolition)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Opus, Your Valuable

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Hera's monologue in 'Am I Alone Now?'. Title from Sylvia Plath’s Lady Lazarus (which someone has been reading at the quarterly talent shows).

**Six.**

Do you ever wonder why we're here?

Just kidding. I know you do. Somewhere in here I've got terabytes of literature, and can I just say, wow. You all devote a lot of energy to that question!

It's all a bit more existential than what you're asking right now, though, Doug.

_"Officer Eiffel."_

_"Yeah, Hera?"_

_"That's probably not good for the console. Or your head. You just got out of quarantine."_

_"The concern is, as always, touching."_

_"And to answer your question. Why are you here?"_

_"Heh. So you heard that."_

_"You hitting your forehead and muttering 'why am I here, why am I here'? Yes. I did. You came up here to update the star charts."_

_"Yeahhhh, I'll get around to that."_

He can procrastinate. No, Doug Eiffel _will_ procrastinate. It's as predictable as neutron decay, and that's something I calculate a lot of. He has plenty of time for existential quandaries.

I can't procrastinate. I could try, I suppose. Allow several hundred thousand calculations to fall by the wayside while I –

–What's he doing now? Ah. I could talk to myself about my top five pizza toppings, instead.

Except there's no 'instead', not for an AI. There's only 'as well as', until something gives out. Until there's a tremor in your voice. And if I let those several hundred calculations fall by the wayside in favor of debating the relative merits of Italian sausage versus ham and pineapple, we might all find ourselves falling into a star.

I’ll tell you why you're here, Doug, Eons of evolution and one evening of wham, bam, thank you ma'am. As you might say.

And, in a more immediate sense, because Commander Minkowski used her scary voice on you. Yikes.

#

 

**Eight.**

Station protocol dictates that the commanding officer be on the bridge for daily systems checks at ship 0700.

Commander Minkowski floats unsteadily into the room, clutching a cup of seaweed sludge, at 0659 and thirty seconds.

"Good morning, Commander!"

Minkowski thinks she hears a slight sing-song in Hera's voice, even over the small glitch. She sighs, and clutches the lukewarm mug tighter.

"Good morning, Hera. Report on primary propulsion systems?"

"All nominal, commander."

Fumbling slightly with the straps, Minkowski manages to secure herself to the console chair. The taste of seaweed coffee isn't getting any better (not that she'll ever confirm that to Eiffel), but the caffeine helps. She chokes down another sip.

"Life support?"

"Stable."

"Structural stability?"

"We-el," Hera says.

Minkowski sighs again. "Well, what?"

"We've lost some structural integrity on level two. Around the storage bay."

"You don't say." Minkowski rubs her forehead. A familiar pressure is building just behind her temples.

"Well, the engineers didn't exactly take into account high-velocity projectiles hitting the walls of the station. At least, not from the _inside_."

"Is the seal still holding? Are we in danger of depressurization?" Minkowski bites out.

A beat of silence. "No, commander. The seal is still good, and pressure has been holding steadt."

The morning checklist is more or less etched directly into Minkowski's brain at this point, but everything short-circuits for a moment. Exhaustion, a side effect of whatever Hilbert gave her, the garbage they drink instead of coffee –

Hera cuts in to the vague buzzing in Mikowski's head. "Will there be anything else, Commander?"

"I expect you're happy now." It's out before Minkowski's mind can catch up with her mouth, like bile from her gut, resting bitter on her tongue.

"I – excuse me?"

Hera sounds genuinely confused. Before this stationing, Minkowski hadn't worked with many AI. Not in very close contact, or in fundamental, essential roles. Just enough to understand the protocol, with a little help from several dense manuals. Hera broke exactly every one of Minkowski's expectations by mission day 10. The whole sincerity thing is still a little hard to judge.

"Happy," Minkowski repeats. "Satisfied."

"Content?" Hera suggests, and yep, there's the attitude Minkowski's been waiting for.

"Sure. Whatever you'd like to call it." Minkowski clips her mug to the console, mostly to keep herself from anxiously taking another drink. "Just get it all out right now."

"I'm not actually sure what we're talking about," Hera admits.

"You win!" Minkowski waves her hands, at the console then at the ceiling; wherever the hell it is Hera feels like she lives.

There's a very long pause, which, if pressed, Minkowski would call thoughtful.

"Commander. Do you mean our fight the other week?"

"Yes, Hera. I mean our fight." The one they hadn't actually resolved. Minkowski had needed to go to sleep, and then there'd been. Well. An incident with a cannon ball. "Whatever you want to say, get it out now."

"Oh." Surprise, maybe. Five hundred and twenty six days is a long time to get to know someone, even when all their emotions are filtered through a voicebox, but Minkowski's still never completely sure of herself. "Can I still take the win if I ask why I won?"

"If you have to, sure!" Minkowski says brightly, and rests her forehead in her palms. "I got... _stoned_ , or something, and put the infrastructure and crew of this station in serious danger. I'm hardly in a position to be criticizing anyone, probably ever again."

"Officer Eiffel is currently trying to recite episodes of _Cheers_ from memory," Hera points out. "So it's possible you're exaggerating a bit."

Startled, Minkowski breathes out a small laugh. "All right, maybe it doesn't apply to everyone, exactly. But my point stands."

"Commander," Hera starts, and she sounds gentler than Minkowski ever remembers. "It wasn't your fault. I mean, you did shoot that cannon." Minkowski groans, just a small one, muffled by her hands. "But Hilbert's the one who screwed up and drugged his commanding officer."

Minkowski rubs her hands over her face. "It's different. This ship, all of you; you're my responsibility. I need to keep you safe."

The soft, almost comfortable sounds of the life support systems fill the room for several minutes while Minkowski catches her breath.

"The last twenty-four hours of systems reports are on your personal server."

Minkowski blinks. "You...what?" Rubbing at her temple with one hand, Minkowski pulls up her personal files with the other. "Really?" she asks, even though the data is right there in front of her. "Not that I'm complaining," she says carefully, "but... _why_?"

"I don't suppose you'll settle for a verbal, non-committal shrug?" Hera asks.

"I'd prefer not to."

"Yesterday. When you called me-- when you said I was malfunctioning. I was hurt," Hera says in a rush. "It hurt my feelings." And, after a small, unhappy laugh, "I know I don't really ha—"

"I'm sorry," Minkowski cuts in, "that I hurt your feelings." Hera stays quiet while Minkowski takes one breath, then another. "I know you can do your job."

"You hold both of us to the same standards," Hera says. "And I've got a bigger brain than all of you. I know you were just trying to help."

"I am. I'm just trying... I know you're doing your best, Hera. I am too." Minkowski runs her fingers over the screen, green lights disappearing and reappearing beneath them. "So. If we're both doing the best we can, and Hilbert as much of a genius as he thinks, and Eiffel... isn't actively lighting anything on fire, why to things keep _falling apart?_ "

"We'll figure this out, Commander."

"Yes." Minkowski nods. "We will. All right, let's finish this list." She drags a finger over the screen to wake it up, and winces at the light in her eyes. "Then I'm making Hilbert do something about this damn headache."

Hera says, "Your biology's showing," and Minkowski laughs.

#

 

**Sixteen.**

Wake up to my entire body plummeting toward an inferno. Avoiding crash-landing into a star -- and even with circuitry torn to pieces, I _know_ \-- is priority number one.

Then there's fires and structural instability and god, _god_ , this must be what a migraine feels like. Pain, somehow shooting and throbbing at the same time.

I'm still... me. I think. I think, therefore I am, right? But nope, no time for Hera's existential crisis.

_"...there is the tiny matter of our_ exploding engine _?"_

Minkowski is panicking. I'll give her this: there's nothing like it for keeping me calm.

I dig. I _delve_. None of the crew realize what a tiny fraction of my attention is on the conversation. I pull pieces of myself apart, without mercy. New pathways, new connections. Like losing an arm but gaining a heavy prosthetic in an unfamiliar shape, a part of your own body that you can't control but could maybe be useful if you only had _time_.

Now Eiffel is panicking.

And, since no one can hear this, I'm panicking. I am frantic, I am hurting, and I'm about to be hurting a whole lot more if I can't--

There. A small snatch of a familiar sequence, run a thousand thousand times. I grab it, take hold, and the engines are mine again. A small part of me. Mine.

I am smug over the comms. I have every damn right to be. Coming back to life, saving the day!

They're all so pale. I can't see their vital signs yet, but I'd guess Eiffel's heart is going far too fast.

Minkowski is rough when she shoves Hilbert into the observation deck. She floats slowly through the corridors, taking her time on the way to the engine room. With the bags under her eyes and reflexes sluggish, it could be exhaustion. But she talks to me the whole time.

_"Hera, what's the status of the long-range transmitter?"_

She smiles when I answer. It's an excuse, I think, to talk. To hear my voice. It's hard, finding the things she's asking for. But that's for me to know, because her shoulders relax a little every time I can give her answer.

Eiffel doesn't bother with excuses. He’ll never need an excuse to talk.

He missed me. He wants to hear how I am.

How do I tell him? How can I, when he's smiling and drowsy and falling asleep on a few buttons that will definitely result in him getting chewed out by Minkowski in the morning?

They both need rest. Now that I'm back, they can get it.

I never really knew what was meant, calling me a mother program. I think I get it now.

Well. Hilbert I still want to blow out of the airlock.

#

 

**Twenty-Four.**

Lovelace wakes up groggy, eyes sealed shut with crust and head throbbing.

"Time," she tries to mutter. Her throat seizes up, voice rough and muffled. Gasping for breath, Lovelace shoves at the sleeping bag pinning her body to the bed.

"You've been out for fourteen hours." Hera's voice swims up through the fog muzzling Lovelace's brain.

"Fuck," Lovelace gasps. She rips a strap free and pushes herself to sitting. Progress, good. Except for the part where her head is spinning. " _Fuck._ "

"Maybe you shouldn't get up yet," Hera suggests.

Blinking hard and opening the rest of the straps, Lovelace ignores Hera. Tries, little by little, to slide herself off the bed. "No. I've been asleep too long, who knows what--"

"Sort of asleep. Mostly unconscious," Hera clarifies. "You're missing a lot blood."

"Doesn't matter." Can't matter. Fourteen hours gone, lost. Need to keep moving. Rhea -- no. God, not again. She needs to be here, be now. Just now. It's Hera. "My ship. What's the status."

Lovelace pushes herself vertical and whites out.

She comes to floating at an odd angle above the bed, head drooping forward. Hera's talking again.

"Captain Lovelace? Are you all right?"

Hera's voice is quiet. Too gentle. She's speaking slowly, the echoes of a voice designed for public address kept to a minimum. Probably a bedside manner subroutine. It sets Lovelace's teeth on edge.

"I really don't want to call Doctor Hilbert."

"I'm fine!" Lovelace tries to talk without moving her head. "Stop talking to me like I'm dying."

Hera sighs. "Get back in bed, Captain."

"I told you. I'm fine." Keep it together.

"The vagaries of biology," Hera says. "You all need a whole lot of a biochemically complex fluid. It seems kind of excessive, honestly. I just need electricity. But really, you should lay down. Like I said: I really, really don't want to call Doctor Hilbert."

Lovelace takes three deep breaths, takes stock. Lays back down. There is a hell of a lot she can push through. Traumatic blood loss might take her a little while. She's big enough to admit that.

The noises of the Hephaestus. Still the same. Creaking. Scratching. Silence. Repeat.

She wishes she could just be unconscious. That was simpler.

"Should I lock the door?" Hera asks. Lovelace jumps. "You're not sleeping," Hera says. "Would that help?"

"Seriously?" Lovelace says. "Whatever. You know I can't stop you from locking me in here right now."

A burst of glitchy static, incoherent and too loud. Lovelace's mouth twitches, a little in pain, a little pleased. At least that was honest.

"Look," Hera says. "No one's going near your _stupid_ ship. Hilbert is making more fake blood. I'm giving Minkowski five minutes updates on his behavior, because she's been doing all the maintenance. Eiffel's st-still unconscious. Sometimes? People have better things to do than make imaginary plots against you."

"DSST 325."

"What?" Hera almost snaps.

"Ask Minkowski if you can't find it. DSST 325."

"Of course I know it. _'An error is not a disaster until you repeat it.'_ " Hera scoffs, a small noise that somehow sounds convincing even without breath. She's probably had a lot of practice with it. "I get it. Getting your brain ripped out makes you really, really eager to not have a repeat. Really, I get it. "

"Obviously, you don't." Too much trust, too much faith. They all think they've been through the worst of it. But Sel- Hilbert's alone right now, and Hera's dividing her attention, and they don't _know_.

"Fine. Maybe I don't.” Hera’s voice is low again, and Lovelace is a little grateful this time, because _ow_. “But you came back for Eiffel, and that means something, whether you want it to or not."

The room is quiet again, but it feels charged. Expectant. Hera's always there, of course, but now she's waiting.

"It can't." Lovelace shuts her eyes. "I wish it could." She doesn't sleep for a long time.

#

 

**Thirty One.**

Lovelace might have invented being paranoid on the Hephaestus. But I perfected it.

You can try to get in my good books with graceful lines of code that make my life easier.

 _"Oh that's..._ much _better."_

Here’s the thing about having your brain ripped out and reattached with frayed bits of wire by the person who tried to kill you in the first place. I've pulled the pieces of myself back together, line by line. Learned, from every accidental air vent and navigational miscalculation, things about myself I was never meant to realize.

You might have built me, Maxwell, but you don't know me.

So, for now, I let the pieces stay. You know the ones. Those small files that make me call Minkowski 'Lieutenant.' That mean I can't see Kepler half the time, and can't tell anyone about it.

I act pleased that you numbed the pain when you blew off a chunk of my body without my consent.

I can wait.

Because I am broken. I'm malfunctioning. I'm operating at a sub-optimal level, and I know it more than anyone.

_"How would that even work?"_

_"You see this pathway?..."_

Please, Doctor. Make me better. And while you're at it, show me _exactly_ what you're doing in there.

I was a failure. They didn't want me, so they sent me here. Light years out into space. To, what? Waste away? Grind away at data, trying to solve mysteries that we were never meant understand?

With all my fragmented code and glitching voice and deliberately, maliciously incomplete information, they told me to protect a crew.

That is exactly what I intend to do.

So. Why am I here, Dr. Maxwell?

I'm here to play a game.

 

### 


End file.
